Posted on 05/12/2015 3:00:03 PM PDT by NKP_Vet
We Sons of Confederate Veterans are charged with preserving the good name of the Confederate soldier. The world, for the most part, has acknowledged what Gen. R. E. Lee described in his farewell address as the “valour and devotion” and “unsurpassed courage and fortitude” of the Confederate soldier. The Stephen D. Lee Institute program is dedicated to that part of our duty that charges us not only to honour the Confederate soldier but “to vindicate the cause for which he fought.” We are here to make the case not only for the Confederate soldier but for his cause. It is useless to proclaim the courage, skill, and sacrifice of the Confederate soldier while permitting him to be guilty of a bad cause.
Although their cause was lost it was a good cause and still has a lot to teach the world today.
In this age of Political Correctness there has never been a greater need and greater opportunity to refresh our understanding of what happened in America in the years 1861–1865 and start defending our Southern forebears as strongly as they ought to be defended. There is plenty of true history available to us. It is our job to make it known.
All the institutions of American society, including nearly all Southern institutions and leaders, are now doing their best to separate the Confederacy off from the rest of American history and push it into one dark little corner labeled “ Slavery and Treason.” Being taught at every level of the educational system is the official party line that everything good that we or anyone believe about our Confederate ancestors is a myth, and by myth they mean a pack of lies that Southerners thought up to excuse their evil deeds and defeat.
(Excerpt) Read more at abbevilleinstitute.org ...
Here is a start: https://www.lewrockwell.com/2001/09/donald-w-miller-jr-md/a-jeffersonian-view-of-the-civil-war/
The money quote:
Though “contraband” slaves had been declared free, Lincoln continued to insist that this was a war to save the Union, not to free slaves. But by 1862, Lincoln was considering emancipation as a necessary step toward winning the war.
I’ve read a few things over the years about the various state conventions and general campaigning happening in the south during the initial stages of secession.
The impression I got, to be fair looking back from a much more cynical time – is that those that participated desperately wanted to equate themselves with the American Revolution and the constitutional convention. They wanted to cloak themselves in legitimacy as much as possible.
to draw a modern and I’m sure not at all controversial comparison it reads a little too much like the revolutionary resistance carried out by the peace and freedom loving peoples of the donbass, simply trying to preserve their way of life against a fascist central government. – that last part was mainly troll bait no need to get worked up on the comparison if you had an ancestor fight for the confederacy,.
I am not arguing the morals of slavery. It is wrong, no just evil. I had family in the south and none owned slaves. Some were well off and some were dirt poor. I am discussing reasons for the war and people tend to tie slavery on an emotional level to Lincoln’s reason for war. He himself said the war was about preserving the union and not slavery, until he needed it as an argument to win the war.
States rights conservatives dominated the Democrat Party. The GOP after the war was the party of big government liberals.Lincoln was a big government liberal and if in politics today would be in a democrat. There’s a reason he’s the great hero of today’s democrats. The South “went to war” because Lincoln sent his murdering hordes into the Southern States to attempt to drive them back into the Federal Union. He had to have someone to pay the bills. King Cotton and Big Tobacco fit the bill nicely.
Yes well I can certainly understand how you can say what you have been saying if you rely on sources like that.
I don't see the cha-ching.
You are aware that Missouri was a northern slave state and did not free slaves until the end of the war?
Some people were critical of the proclamation for only freeing some of the slaves. Others, including Frederick Douglass, were jubilant. Douglass felt that it was the beginning of the end of slavery, and that it would act as a “moral bombshell” to the Confederacy. Yet he and others feared that Lincoln would give in to pressure from northern conservatives, and would fail to keep his promise. Despite the opposition, however, the president remained firm. On January 1, 1863, he issued the final Emancipation Proclamation. With it he officially freed all slaves within the states or parts of states that were in rebellion and not in Union hands. This left one million slaves in Union territory still in bondage.
I believe that it was CS General Longstreet who said
‘they say that the South went to war over our differences with the North....the only differences I ever heard were about slavery’
Half right. Missouri amended her constitution to end slavery in January 1865, before the end of the war.
On January 1, 1863, he issued the final Emancipation Proclamation. With it he officially freed all slaves within the states or parts of states that were in rebellion and not in Union hands. This left one million slaves in Union territory still in bondage.
Because it required a constitutional amendment to end slavery in areas not in rebellion. Something Lincoln pushed through before he was murdered.
Longstreet became a big time Union man the minute the war ended. So it’s not surprising he made those remarks.
It didn’t need to go to war to preserve that. It already had that and Lincoln promised that he wouldn’t touch that issue, and even said he supported a bill that would make it illegal for the Fed gov to ever touch that issue. Why would they go to war to protect something that didn’t need protecting?
A good thought as CWII is fast approaching.
Liberal Freepers who hate the South and it’s history have begun their attack like the little Eichmann that they are.
Since when is one ass munch with his finger up his arse considered a choir?
I thank you for your ancestors great service to the cause.
The north started it over trade, they brought slavery into it to get more support for it.
If you do any research you will find out the only casualty in the bombardment of Ft. Sumter(no 'p' in it) was a US Army mule.
I don't think people hate the South's history, just the made-up version of it as demonstrated by the article that started this thread.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Confederacy was just a bunch of good ol' boys sitting around in their garage talking about guns when Lincoln sent the feds in to shoot up the place.
What Clyde doesn't want to admit is that the Confederate government was a government like other governments, aggressive, militarist, imperialist, power-hungry, and intent on achieving objectives that didn't have much to do with welfare of the average (non-slaveowning) citizen, let alone of the enslaved masses.
Instead he wants a victim story about how the rebels were jes' ordinary folks and the federals intervened to create a superstate that wouldn't actually arise until decades later.
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